Holy Saturday

Resurrection: A life full of meaning.

Through his death, Christ has not only denounced and conquered sin, he has also given new meaning to suffering, even to that which does not depend on anyone's sin, like that of the terrible earthquake that recently hit the neighboring Abruzzo region. He has made it an instrument of salvation, a path to resurrection and life. His sacrifice exercises its effects not through death, but rather thanks to the conquering of death, that is the resurrection. "He died for our sins, he rose for our justification." (Romans 4:25): the two events are inseparable in the mind of Paul and the Church.

It is a universal human experience: In this life pleasure and pain follow each other with the same regularity with which, when a wave arises in the ocean, a trough follows a crest and pulls down the shipwrecked sailor.Drug use, the abuse of sex, and homicidal violence, all provide intoxicating pleasure in the moment, but lead to the moral dissolution, and often even the physical ruin, of the person.

Christ, with his passion and death, has inverted the relationship between pleasure and pain. He, "in exchange for the joy which was placed before him, submitted himself to the cross" (Hebrews 12:2). No longer is it a pleasure that ends in suffering, but rather suffering that leads to life and joy. It is not just a different order of events; it is joy, in this way, that has the last word, not suffering, and a joy that will last for eternity. "Christ risen from the dead will die no more; death no longer has power over him" (Romans 6:9). And it will not have power over us either.

This new relationship between suffering and pleasure is reflected in the way in which time marches on in the Bible. According to human calculations, day starts in the morning and ends at night; in the Bible, day starts at night and ends with daytime: "It was night and it was day: the first day" says the story of creation (Genesis 1:5). It is not meaningless that Christ died in the evening and rose in the morning. Without God, life is a day that ends at night; with God it is a night that ends with day, and a day without a sunset.

So Christ did not come to increase human suffering or preach resignation to suffering; he came to give meaning to suffering and to announce its end and defeat. That slogan on the bus in London and in other cities is also read by parents who have sick children, by lonely people, the unemployed, refugees from war zones, people who have suffered grave injustices in life. I try to imagine their reaction to reading the words: "There's probably no God. Now enjoy your life!" How?

Suffering is certainly a mystery for everyone, especially the suffering of innocent people, but without faith in God it becomes immensely more absurd. Even the last hope of rescue is taken away. Atheism is a luxury that only those with privileged lives can afford; those who have had everything, including the possibility to dedicate themselves to study and research.